Disagreements About Stimulus Embroil G.O.P.

By JACKIE CALMES and ROBERT PEAR

Published: February 23, 2009

Republican governors split sharply during the weekend over how to respond to the economic crisis, a debate whose outcome will go a long way toward shaping how the national party redefines itself in the wake of its election defeats of recent years.

The divisions were evident at the annual winter meeting of the National Governors Association here as the Republicans differed both in their approaches to their own states' budget shortfalls and in their attitudes toward President Obama's $787 billion stimulus package.

Some party leaders said Republicans should compromise with the Democratic president and move to the political center to attract independents' votes. A small but vocal group of conservative governors countered that the party instead must rebuild by standing against new spending and taxes to regain the trust of conservative voters.

''There's a tug of war right now within the party as to where we go next,'' Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina, one of the conservative Republican leaders, said in an interview. ''I am in the camp that says we go back to basics. There are other folks who say something a little different. The answer will be determined in this tug of war.''

Among those tugging opposite him is Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, who only last week concluded a battle to close his state's $42 billion budget deficit over the opposition of Republican state lawmakers who opposed tax increases in the compromise. While Mr. Schwarzenegger was in Washington for the governor's meeting, a petition condemning him circulated back home at the California Republican Party convention.

Those Republicans ''were not in touch with what the majority of people want to do in California,'' Mr. Schwarzenegger said Sunday on the ABC program ''This Week.'' ''And the same is nationwide.''

Unfazed by the attacks from Republicans, Mr. Schwarzenegger said he would try again to win health insurance coverage for all Californians, though it would require new taxes.

''Even though it is against your principles or philosophy,'' he said he believed that officeholders should be doing ''what the people want you to do rather than getting stuck in your ideology.''

Most of the Republican governors joined the Democrats in Washington for the annual winter meeting, while several appeared on the Sunday television talk shows. Mr. Obama welcomed the governors for dinner at the White House on Sunday evening and will meet with them on Monday.

The Republican governors' divide reflects their party's erosion to a mostly regional party that is based in the conservative South, after heavy election losses in the Northeast, Midwest and West. And with the party leaderless after losing control of both the White House and Congress in the past two election cycles, the split is colored by early maneuvering for conservatives' support among potential aspirants for the party's 2012 presidential nomination.

Several governors, nearly all of them Southerners known to have national ambitions, have been withering in their criticism of Mr. Obama's stimulus plan, which received only 3 of 219 Republicans' votes in Congress. The harshest critics include Mr. Sanford and Govs. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Haley Barbour of Mississippi, the national chairman of the party in the 1990s, Rick Perry of Texas, and Sarah Palin of Alaska, the party's 2008 vice-presidential nominee.

After initially saying they might reject any federal aid, several conservative governors said in interviews over the weekend that they were likely to reject only the money for expanded unemployment compensation because of federal strings that could require them to provide relief to part-time workers who lose jobs as well as to full-time workers. Many other states already provide such aid.

''Now is the time, and it's a great opportunity for Republican governors and other leaders to offer conservative-based solutions to the problems,'' Mr. Jindal said on ''Meet the Press'' on NBC. He announced on Friday that he would reject the $100 million for unemployment compensation in the estimated $4 billion for Louisiana.

Mr. Jindal, the national party's choice to deliver the Republican response to Mr. Obama's address to Congress on Tuesday night, previewed his message, saying: ''We need to work with the president every chance we can. But on principle -- when we disagree with him -- we should be unafraid to stand up on principle and to point out our alternative solutions.''

Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida also appeared on ''Meet the Press'' and immediately rejected Mr. Jindal's approach.

''There is a national leader, his name is President Obama,'' said Mr. Crist, who campaigned for the stimulus package in his state with Mr. Obama.

''I think we do need to be bipartisan,'' he added. ''We need to be, in fact, nonpartisan.''

Mr. Crist took issue with some of the Republican governors' criticism of the unemployment compensation. ''In the past five weeks, I've visited six unemployment offices throughout Florida,'' he said. ''I look into the eyes of these people, and I understand that the challenges are serious that they're having to deal with, and I want to do everything I can to help them.''

In a separate interview, Mr. Crist said, ''I am not here to judge'' the governors who opposed the stimulus bill. But pointing out that he and Mr. Schwarzenegger supported it, he said, ''Maybe it's a result of being from larger states.'' Their two states also supported Mr. Obama last November, while the critics' states did not.

Of the 22 Republican governors, most have not been publicly critical of the stimulus measure. ''I want this president to succeed because I want America to succeed,'' Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana said in an interview. ''There will be plenty of time for alternatives later.''

Four Republicans, including Mr. Crist and Mr. Schwarzenegger, openly supported the Obama plan. The governors' association earlier this month endorsed it in a letter co-signed by its Democratic chairman, Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania, and the Republican vice chairman, Gov. Jim Douglas of Vermont. The Southerners led the opposition.

''The last time Republicans made a comeback, it was led by Republican governors,'' Mr. Barbour, of Mississippi, said in an interview, referring to the mid-1990s when Republicans captured control of both chambers of Congress for the first time in 40 years.

''Now we have to take that same approach, take our values and principles,'' he said, and ''tie them to the new issue set that we have to deal with'' amid the recession.

Among those taking something of a Republican middle ground was Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, another potential 2012 prospect. He emphasized in an interview that the party needs to attract women, Hispanics, younger voters and independents to recover.

''The Republican Party is going to have to adhere to its principles, because they are foundational and they are important. But they need to be presented in a hopeful, optimistic, up-tempo, modern, practical way, and that's not what we have been doing recently,'' Mr. Pawlenty said.

''We've become too petty and angry in many aspects,'' he said. ''That's unappealing to swing voters.''